Tattoos. People who like computers don't tend to bother. Perhaps because they haven't found the emblem by which they want to live their entire life. Perhaps because they realise that despite the artistic merit that some tattoos undeniably have, they still make people look like scary attention-seeking freaks. Perhaps because they're just not sophisticated enough, and make you think of convicts and sweaty roadies. However, tattoos are about to be dragged into the future - kicking and screaming.

With advances in nanotechnology, it has been possible for some time to engineer a computer more powerful than the human brain that takes up no more space than a match head. With the development by Sony of microscopic pico-speakers - invisible to the human eye, but capable of making enough sound to fill a Dutch Barn, talking tattoos are finally on the horizon in Japan. Boffins are just putting the final touches into needle delivery systems that can program the computers as they are injected into the skin, using FM radio signals.

The carrier fluid is made up from a combination of magnesium, ordinary table salt, and tiny cogs that can spin at speeds of over 20,000 revolutions per minute. This equates - roughly - into the speed of a slow internet connection, about 14.4kbps. Once under the skin, they are held in place with virus-like anchors that hook into the nearest blood vessel, and become stimulated by normal electrical impulses that the brain regularly sends to parts of the body to make sure that they are still there. This starts a boot-up process, after which the tattoo becomes "live", and can begin to talk.

Early speech patterns were unsophisticated and tactless, mostly saying "Moschops!". | So, what do these tattoos say? Well, to be fair, until recently they weren't the most sophisticated of talkers. If fact, they initially made nothing more than baby noises, and demanded attention by creating white noise until the tattoo was stroked. This odd display of humanity is to be expected when you're working with nano-computers, says Heinrich Petersson. "They're so tiny they're like little brains," he spoke, "and you can hardly be surprised if they start acting like brains and wanting the loving." He continued, "I am against this whole idea of putting brains inside you for the purposes of having a talking tattoo. It is an abuse of nature, and of little tiny brains, which should be allowed to live in a natural environment, not in a salt solution under the skin of a human person." Last year, Heinrich Petersson headed a campaign to reduce the number of cows kept in houses. "Cows are not used to central heating and stairs", he complained at the time. "To keep cows in houses would encourage evolution to move in very strange ways. They could lose hair and evolve toes." We would suggest that Heinrich is just scared of a future that doesn't involve him, and his crackpot anti-progress theories. He is a man who should be ignored or attacked.

But this isn't all - connecting up the tattoos to mobile phone technology, the tattoos can be stimulated by the electro-magnetic fields generated by these devices to rearrange their speech patterns to mimic the person talking. With just an inch square of paint delivered into the wrist, or even into the inside of the bottom lip, the human body is converted into a cellular phone, and can send SMS messages by tapping morse code onto a patch of tattooed skin. This also means that the human internet is rushing towards us - with tattoos programmed to reorganise themselves under the skin as information is received from the world wide web. Text, images, and complex shockwave animations have all been perfectly recreated under the skin of rabbits, and Nokia intend to begin human trials in the third world next year, thanks to the loosening of human rights legislation in these areas. To put this into perspective, it's easier to perform exotic and unsafe surgery on an African baby than it is to pass your driving test in England. Thanks to the huge African birth surplus, doctors do not even need to pass a written test to be allowed into the baby vaults, and once inside they are given carte blanche to hack up as many children as they like, provided that the children are humanely stunned when the killing slice is made. | The computers are powerful enough to deal with human issues such as hypocrisy and the proper use of the word "bitch".

This man was driven to the brink of insanity by a collection of childish swastika tattoos. Note, in particular, the words "Bumconker", "Cuntlepiece", and "Jonnies", which are being yelled at 120dB. | After the movement of the liquid ink carrier under the skin has been mastered, scientists see no reason why special fingertip "gateways" cannot be introduced to allow input and output of computer inks. This would allow for upgrades, the repair of bleached or broken computers, and the development of ink weaponry. "Conceivably, the ink could be shot out of these funnel-shaped apertures in the fingertip. Once on the target, the inks could reassemble themselves to form a target sign, making it considerably easier for the authorities to shoot them. Alternatively, we could install an attack mode into the computers, which would cause them to eat their current host, leaving only a smoking skeleton." Ink-Shooting Crimefighters are being constructed in secret warehouses throughout the country as you read this. They are built to resemble humans from the waist up, but a metal squid-spider base contains enough computer ink to eat the flesh from 500 burglars and road traffic offenders. Welcome the new force of peace to your streets with a smile and a wave. Just don't do anything that could be construed by a computer as threatening behaviour, such as wave.